


When We Meet Again

by HopefullySpencer



Series: Solangelo Week 2019 [3]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Ancient Greece, M/M, god/mortal, solangeloweek, solangeloweek2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 13:17:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19464784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopefullySpencer/pseuds/HopefullySpencer
Summary: Nico is the god of the Lethe. He does his job and he does it well, and he tries not to let it bother him too much. But things complicate themselves when he lets himself fall for one o the heroes whose memories he has to steal.





	When We Meet Again

Nico’s job was mostly painless. Mostly.

Ironically, Nico could remember every soul he’d ever wiped clean of memories. Being the god of the Lethe was a long hard job, long and conflicting with implications he’d rather not recall. But recall he did. In fact most of his days were spent staring into the river of lost memories itself, contemplating what his job as fragments of mortals former lives floated past in the murky, gray waters. More fittingly, Nico could not remember his own mortal life. He only knew he must have had one once. What he did to deserve this job, he wasn’t sure, and there were days he wondered if this was more of a punishment than a reward.

His main task was to clear the souls of heroes that had earned Elysium and wanted to see if they were worthy of the isle of the blessed. Most did not return for a second soak in the Lethe.

His job used to disgust him. To know he was the one to steal a person’s whole life from them- well, that was his own personal torture. To know he was the reason someone forgot every hug, every moment of laughter, every first love- that killed him.

It took centuries, but eventually he realized he wasn’t evil. He only took memories freely given, and he took them all with no preference. With every good memory, he also took the awful ones. The setting of every broken bone, the memories behind every flinch and every scream every night cried to sleep. All of it, gone because of him. He stopped looking at the blank souls as sad and started seeing them as… peaceful. And that he could live with that.

Still, he tried not to get attached to the souls. In and out, he helped deliver them to their destiny. Mostly it was simple. Mostly. And then he met… Him.

The first time they met, Nico held himself back. A hero trying for the Isle. He would have to make it through two more lifetimes of proving himself to the gods, proving he was worthy enough to earn a spot on the Isle. Still, the hero was stunning. He caught himself wanting more than he should have.

The second time the soul arrived to be wiped he was completely different, and yet just the same. This time, well this time Nico let himself slip. He did something he’d never even considered before. He invited the man with the stunning soul to spend the day with him.

“Is that allowed?” the hero asked.

Nico shrugged. “It’s…well, it’s never been done before. Are you willing to take the risk?”

The man grinned and took Nico’s hand. In all his immortal life he couldn’t recall intertwining his fingers with another living person’s.

“Wouldn’t be much of a hero if I didn’t.”

One day turned into two, two turned into three and by the end of the seventh day Nico was sure Hades would be looking for the renegade hero’s soul by now. He was the one who sent them through the doors of death after all, not Nico.

“I’ve got to send you off soon,” he said. “Wipe your memories and deliver you to Hades.”

He felt the man’s hand squeeze his own as they continued on their walk along the shores of the Lethe. There was a pause, a comfortable silence he’d never felt with anyone else before.

“This means I’m not going to remember you, right?” he asked. Nico nodded.

The man stopped, took his other hand and met his eyes. “And there isn’t any way you could leave yourself? Just you—take anything else, take it all I—“ His voice halted on the last word. He swallowed the lump in his throat. “I just don’t want to lose you yet.”

Nico brought the man’s scarred knuckles to his lips and pressed them there a moment.

“I feel the same. If I could keep you an eternity, I would—but that’s not how it works. Besides, you need to start over again. If you prove yourself a hero one more time, you’ll earn the Isle—I know you can do it.”

He drops Nico’s hand suddenly and cupped his face with his own. “It won’t mean anything unless you’re there. It won’t be _blessed_ unless I’m with you.”

He kissed him so tender and soft that Nico felt like he was going to break. And somewhere through the fog of euphoria he took a step back. And back. His hands on his lover shoulders taking steps blindly down the bank of the river behind them. By the time his lover had opened his eyes they were knee-deep into the Lethe.

“Please,” he begged. “Please, at least let me tell you my name.”

Nico wrapped him up in his arms and kissed his forehead, with his lips still there he whispered: “Tell me when we meet again.”

He held him as they waited further into the waters. Slowly the tension left his lover’s body until Nico was all that was holding them up. It took everything we had in him to force himself to submerge his lover’s head, to complete the process but after he did, when he brought them and back up again, everything was blank. His eyes, his expression. only his soul remained the same, as stunningly bright as always. Nico hand delivered him to Hades himself.

***

Nico’s job was mostly painless. Mostly.

It must have been years since Nico delivered his lover soul to Hades’ Gates. The heartbreak had dulled to an ache. He knew he’d never see him again, after all no matter his fate in this third lifetime, he never seek rebirth again. He would never need another clean slate, and he could not remember Nico. There was no reason for them to ever see one another again. And yet…

Not enough decades and passed for human lifespan to have begun and ended when his lover’s soul reappeared again. Heroes rarely lived that long anyway. Still, he should not have been there.

This time his body was… Stunning. Somehow it always seem to reflect the light of his soul, but this time it’s surfaced in freckles, and hair spun out of gold that curled against his ears, and eyes so blue it was like looking directly up at the deepest part of the sky on a clear summer’s day. His love was sunshine- and he had absolutely no idea who Nico was.

“I’ve come to obtain the Mark of Achilles,” he said, his eyes determined, his voice unwavering.

“I knew you’d turn out a hero,” Nico muttered. “Always a hero…”

“What did you say?” He called from the far end of the Lethe.

Nico knew the dangers of the Mark. All power comes with a price, of course- and this was all or nothing.

“Do you know the consequences of what you’re asking for, Hero? Do you think you’ve got what it takes?”

A confident smirk tugged at one side of his mouth, Nico could see it even from a distance.

“Willing to bet my life on it.”

And it was over in an instant. His hero succeeds and leaves his river all but invulnerable, indestructible save one spot, right below the collarbone. As Nico watched him trudge off once again, he knew this would be the last he ever saw of his love. And in that, there’s something oddly comforting.

***

Nico’s job was mostly painless. He wiped clean the memories of heroes and reminded himself daily that he was a neutral force in the world. He is not good and he is not evil- he simply is, and remembering this while the heroes around him forget everything else was what kept the pain away. Mostly

And then one day he sees him, curly blond hair and clear sky eyes- the brightest soul he’d ever laid his eyes on. There he was, walking down the banks of Nico’s river, exactly where he shouldn’t be. Where he never should have been again.

He was older now, closer to the age Nico himself must have died at. Anything past 20 was amazing for a demigod, hopefully the Mark had helped him.

“Hello?” Nico asked. “What brings you here?”

His love regarded him with a tilted head, looking him up and down. “My name is Will,” he said. “Hades sent me… Apparently I’ve done this before. Enough times to be allowed into the Isle of the Blest- but he said I should visit you first. That we have some sort of… Unfinished business.”

Nico laughed for the first time in decades. “I suppose you could call it that.”

His hero bit his lip, a new habit to go with the new body. “I was told we were in love once.”

Nico hadn’t cried in decades, either, but that was something he’d never forgotten how to do. He wiped the tears from his eyes before they could slip down his cheeks.

“You could say that, too,” he replied in a shaky voice.

His hero, Will, dared to step closer. They were arms-length away from each other now. All Nico would have to do is reach out and he’d be able to touch him.

“I…I would like my memories of you back, if there’s any way you can help me with that.”

“I can only steal memories, Will, not return them.”

The disappointment was written all over his face. “Oh.”

And all was quiet for a moment. No sounds but Will’s breathing and the river flowing past them.

Finally Will broke the silence. “No matter—I’ve done much harder things than this before. I’ve taken on Achilles’ mark, I’ve earned Elysium three times. I have an eternity to remember how to love you.”

Nico shook his head. “No matter the form, you’re always so damn cocky.”

Will grinned at him, one side of his mouth tugging up and revealing a dimple. “Would you have me any other way?”

Nico crossed the distance and pulled Will’s hand into his own. “Never.”

***

Nico’s job was painless, mostly. And when it wasn’t, well, Will was there to remind him that there was still good in the world, still good in _him._ And no force in the underworld or otherwise would separate them again.


End file.
